My method of working on a painting
This painting is an example of my usual way of working intuitively one layer at a time. I started the painting in a workshop where we created a busy background, then masking out large areas (I tried large fish) painted a transparent layer over the unmasked area. It was an interesting and fun technique, but I wasn’t happy with my result.
I came home and took rubbing alcohol to the painting and ended up with the beautiful mottled blue and green background you can see in the center. I had been experimenting with shaded areas on the side of the painting with stenciled images in the middle and decided to try that here. I created the top section by embeding purchased handmade paper. I added more stenciling with the cracked pattern in the top, lots of areas of crackle, and shading on the stenciled “bubbles” and I was almost finished.
In adding the metal ribbon as a divider, I decided to make it a less rigid line and some of the cut pieces fell in other places on the painting and I thought those pieces would be an interesting addition.
